Matthew Christopher / abandonedamerica.us

Photograph taken at the Angeronia Medical Center.

Reporter's notebook by Jane Derenowski, NBC News

Things sound different in a place where no one goes.   

Words echo off walls in empty rooms.  

Real or imagined creatures scurry through mysterious puddles.  

Shadows fall in strange places. 

Time doesn’t stop in abandoned buildings, it just moves differently -- and before their ultimate demise, photographer Matthew Christopher is determined to document the life, purpose, and deterioration of these structures.

They aren't just brick and mortar, wood and windows -- Christopher believes the abandoned buildings dotting America’s landscape also have something of a soul.  He wants us to remember our country’s neglected factories, schools, churches, and hospitals before they are gone forever.

He started this project 10 years ago while working in the mental health field.  Some of his first photographs were inside a deserted asylum.  

Matthew Christopher / abandonedamerica.us

Photograph taken at Harmony House Inn.

Matthew Christophe / abandonedamerica.us

Photograph taken at Galilee Steel administrative offices.

Since then, he’s documented dozens of abandoned buildings across the country and presented their stories at galleries and on his website, abandonedamerica.us.  The goal, he says, is to highlight the economic failures leading to their downfall and the social impact on communities fractured by the closing of these neighborhood mainstays.

We met recently at the partially deserted Holmesburg Prison near Philadelphia.  It was eerie, but there was a certain beauty in the stillness and things left behind.  Inside, it reminded me of a quote by French composer Claude Debussy who famously said, “Music is the space between the notes.” The places Christopher photographs tell their stories with silence and extraordinary light – the spaces between the life and death of a building. 

His pictures make me feel like someone told me a secret. 

Christopher is a thoughtful man, melancholy in his assessment of decay -- and I feel lucky he shared his art and technique with us.  I am also grateful to NBC News photographer Bob Riggio for documenting our adventure inside a place almost no one goes.

Matthew Christopher / abandonedamerica.us

Photograph taken at First National Bank.

The United States is currently in the throes of the worst drought in more than 50 years. Special coverage begins Wednesday across the networks of #NBCNews.

See some of the images and stories we have begun collecting from viewers and readers showing how the drought is affecting them. Show us how you've been affected by sharing photos tagged #Drought2012 or use the drop box below. 

More coverage of the drought: 

Drought sends Mississippi into ‘uncharted territory’ 

‘Best year ever’ for some farmers outside drought region   

Forced to sell cattle during drought, dairy farmers ‘just keep praying’ for rain

Drought expected to take toll at checkout

In drought-stricken Wisconsin, farmers helping farmers  

Emergency well drilling brings relief to farmers stricken by drought

Have you been affected by the worst drought in more than 50 years? Share your photos with us on Instagram, Tumblr or Twitter with the tag #Drought2012. You can also upload your photos in the box below. 

Ann Curry

You can tell just by looking into their faces that they have confronted their fears of death, sometimes again and again. Something in their expressions reveals courage, focus, love of country and I think the greatness one hopes is possible in all of us.

Ann Curry

Since America's wars began in Afghanistan and Iraq, I have taken photographs of those who volunteered.  And whether it was in a forward operating base in Helmand Province days before an expected spring offensive over the mountains from Pakistan, or at one of Saddam's palaces in Baghdad, or in an Apache helicopter flying over Iraq, the same thing most deeply impresses: GRIT.  

Ann Curry

Ann Curry

Ann Curry

This is what made me press click on my camera. Isn't this the American grit we always hear about...the kind that links the Pilgrims to the Founding Fathers to soldiers throughout our history, including both Union and Confederate, and all the boys who dropped out of high school to fight on the beaches and in the sands and forests and jungles of World War II? 

Ann Curry

This grit is the stuff of America's past and its future. Today, as our nation nears the end of its rope, after bearing for too long the hard knocks of wars, fears of terrorism and a struggling economy, perhaps the grit learned on the battlefield, is exactly what we need now at home.

Ann Curry

Ann Curry

One million war veterans are expected to return home over the next five years, looking for jobs that could give them a chance to fuel our economy.  Among them are potential future leaders, CEOs and senators, perhaps even a president one day.

Ann Curry

A tsunami victim looks through albums for her photographs on Monday.

OFUNATO, Japan -- In a large, bright room not far from the ocean that raged through this coastal Japanese city nearly a year ago, a handful of people with magnifying glasses pore over boxes of photographs of friends or loved ones.

The massive March 11 tsunami that leveled buildings and flattened towns along a wide swathe of northern Japan, including Ofunato, also took a more subtle toll, with hundreds of thousands of photographs lost to the churning waters.

But now these memories are slowly making their way back to their owners, thanks to the painstaking efforts of a team that cleans them of mud, dirt and oil.

"I got one photo blown up, and I was so thankful for that. I put it in a frame, and it brought tears to my eyes," said 77-year-old resident Yoshiko Jindai, looking through boxes of photographs.

Toru Hanai / Reuters

Recovered photographs are hung to dry after cleaning.

Ofunato has enlisted a team of seven part-time staffers to help sort though the over 350,000 photos that have accumulated after being brought in by police, firefighters, rescue workers and average citizens who were looking through the rubble.

In charge of cleaning and restoring the photos is paper conservator Satoko Kinno, who said her job is the second stage in the marathon of returning the photos to their owners after they are found.

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"I try to remember that people found these photos in the midst of rubble, and that I have to take the baton from them. So that's where I get my motivation," Kinno said.

The photos are frozen once found to prevent bacteria and mold from growing on them until they can be properly cleaned and packed for display.

The facility holds the photos in its industrial-sized freezer bins until they can be dealt with. Once cleaned, they are packed into photo albums and taken around to temporary housing complexes in the hopes of finding their owners.

Other people choose to sort through boxes of photos themselves for hours on end, looking for snapshots of their lives thought lost to the forces of nature.

Some laugh and chat as they search, as if at a casual social occasion. Others grab the books and flip through quickly, almost desperately.

But even those who don't find anything are grateful for the chance to sort through albums filled with thousands of photos of children, graduations and even scenery of areas struck by the tsunami, now devastated. "I have some photos and videos at my home, but it's still very nice of them to do this," said 79-year-old Kimiko Tanaka.

If somebody finds photos that might belong to another person, a member of Kinno's team will make the rounds of temporary housing to take the memories back to them.

Toru Hanai / Reuters

Tsunami victims look through albums for their photographs.

Report: Japan withheld scary nuclear scenario

Thousands have made their way back to grateful owners, but many thousands more remain unclaimed -- or still frozen.

Kinno vows to continue until the last photo goes home.

"I've really started to realize the depth and meaning that each and every photo has to it, and as such I want to do what I can to return as many photos as I can," she added.

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